


Transient Here Below

by MonstrousRegiment



Category: Captain America (2011), The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Gen, Gratuitous use of Paris, Loki's not nice enough for anyone's good, Steve's too nice for his own good, friendship sort of, pre-slash possibly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-17
Updated: 2012-05-17
Packaged: 2017-11-05 13:14:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/406826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonstrousRegiment/pseuds/MonstrousRegiment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a small little café lost in an anonymous corner in Paris, Loki sits to a little table, tea-cup at his side and old leather-bound novel spread open in his long-fingered, musician’s hands. He looks oddly, queerly mundane; dark jeans, grey t-shirt, simple but well-cut black leather jacket. </p><p>Steve stands, and stares, uncertain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transient Here Below

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CampfireTreat (ambiguouslyhere)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=CampfireTreat+%28ambiguouslyhere%29).



> Title taken from the poem "Home" by Jessee H. Butler. 
> 
> This fic is for Campfiretreat, because she's awesome, and because she's right. We need more of this pairing.
> 
> This thing started off as a funny little 'they meet in Paris and talk about stuff' thing and wound up being a philosophical and sentimental mess of words in British accents and needless eloquence. I don't even know. It's Loki's fault, probably. Everything everywhere always is. Ask Thor.

Steve stands, a moment held still in time. 

It is a beautiful day, one of those with radiant sunlight and clear blue skies, temperatures just right, gentle breezes like a lover’s breath against Steve’s skin. In the air the scent of bakeries and coffee hangs heavy and rich, delicious, like sugary moisture after a long rain. 

In a small little café lost in an anonymous corner in Paris, Loki sits to a little table, tea-cup at his side and old leather-bound novel spread open in his long-fingered, musician’s hands. He looks oddly, queerly mundane; dark jeans, grey t-shirt, simple but well-cut black leather jacket. 

Steve stands, and stares, uncertain. 

Coincidences, of course exist. And Thor once mentioned Loki especially liked Paris. Of course, there would have been no way for Loki to know Steve is in Paris now; he only arrived about an hour ago in Tony’s jet, a surprise even to him, as Tony had literally gotten him out of bed and shoved him into the jet, arguing that Steve needed to take a break. 

Loki does not look like he’s plotting anything. He sits there with his legs crossed leaning back in his chair, reading calmly, long fingers turning pages slowly. As Steve watches he moves his right hand to pick up the cup delicately by the handle and sip at his tea, never once interrupting his reading. 

Steve forgets, sometimes, how beautiful Loki is. This is not one of those times. 

They’re not allies, not by any stretch of the imagination, but they aren’t always enemies either. Thor has explained it a thousand times, will probably explain it a thousand times over before any of them learns to accept it. 

Loki’s harshest hound and curse is boredom. He is a uniquely intelligent individual, and as all uniquely intelligent individuals, or at least as far as Steve’s experience goes (re: Tony) they get bored with everything and they can’t handle it well. They grow restless; they stir up trouble, hoping to spark some sort of action that will amuse them, entertain them, something that will catch their attention for a longer span of time. 

Loki gets bored, and when he get bored he spills oil and throws a match and watches and sees what catches fire. He is as whimsical and disloyal as he is cunning, and he switches sides and comes or goes as his pleasure dictates, caring for little more than his own amusement or, on his darker moods, caring only about how much he can hurt his brother. 

Steve stands by the window and watches Loki and hesitates. Loki is alone—of course, he’s always alone. He’s simply here reading, calm, at peace. Steve could keep on walking; Loki hasn’t seen him, and if he realizes he’s being watched he has no inclination, it seems, to take action about it. So Steve could keep on walking and forget he’s seen him here, today, in Paris. 

But Loki sits there in human clothes, the normally sharp lines of his handsome face relaxed, his black hair curiously curled as if combed, for once, thoughtlessly. Loki looks human. He looks young. And he sits very much alone. 

The waitress brushes by, looking down to say something to Loki. The god’s jade green eyes flick up, and in the glance he catches sight of Steve, standing there outside the great window. 

Nothing in his face suggests any sort of emotion, but somehow his entire attention focuses sharply on Steve, line a porcupine prickling up. Steve regrets it. Loki looked genuinely at peace, and now instead once more he looks hostile. Steve remembers something else; Loki treasures his freedom above all else, and despises the thought of being tracked down or trapped. 

Steve raises his hands and gives a step back, but Loki’s eyes are going through him like lasers. He shakes his head, drops his hands and brushes by a table to go inside the café. 

When he steps to Loki’s table, he can already tell he’s ruined Loki’s quiet day. The slope of his shoulders has changed, from relaxed and easy to proud and defensive. It’s as though he believes Steve will rebuke him for being here, in this small little secret spot in Paris, simply reading. As usual, Loki holds himself with a regal sort of contained grace Thor knows nothing of, like a panther. Like the king he’ll never be.

“Hey,” Steve says, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“Captain Rogers,” Loki greets, cold as ice, eyes hard like gemstones. The long line of his thin lips is flat and straight, unhappy. This too Steve regrets. Steve thinks Loki wishes he could be neutral-faced, as if he were wearing a mask at all times, but his features are very mobile and he has an expressive face. In it Steve can almost always see the pain, unless it’s covered briefly by hate and all-consuming anger. 

“I, uh,” Steve hesitates, standing there by Loki’s table, awkward and unsure. 

Loki’s brows twitch closer, and the corner of his lips turns down only slightly. 

“Won’t you sit, Captain?” he asks, indicating with an elegant gesture the chair across from him. Like a reluctant prince receiving a foreign and unwanted dignitary. Steve realizes Loki doesn’t want him there, but he also can’t turn down the invitation now that it’s been offered, since he’s the one that started this whole thing by lingering by the window like an idiot. 

He sits. Loki does not shift, or move, but when the waitress moves by again he stops her with a gesture and orders a refill of his cup, in perfect and flawless French the likes of which Steve could never hope to learn to speak. He also requests, Steve thinks, another cup for Steve. 

Then Loki smiles, that dangerous sharp smile like a blade, the one he smiles in the middle of battles as he stands above rubble and en joys the mayhem he’s caused. The one he smiles right before he stabs Thor.

“So what bring you to Paris, soldier?” he asked, pleasantly enough, tilting his head. Always feline, always dangerous. He pronounces the name I the correct French way, and Steve wonders how two brothers can be so diametrically different having grown up together. 

“I actually,” Steve shrugs, uncomfortable. “Well, _Tony_ brought me to Paris. I’m not sure what he expected. He says I don’t go out enough.”

Loki stares at him, unblinking and blank, for a long moment. At length his right, dark and finely shaped eyebrow goes up. Steve shrugs again. 

“Anyway, I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” he says, spreading his hands, a little helplessly. “I just saw you and, it surprised me.”

The waitress came by, laying on the table a tray with a teapot and two fresh cups, along with chocolate cookies. She makes to pour the tea, but Loki shakes his head, putting his book down on the side and pouring it himself with dexterous, sure hands. Steve accepts his teacup and saucer, because he can’t not, feeling distinctly out of place and uncomfortable even though Loki is being flawlessly polite. 

“I don’t want to impose,” he says helplessly. 

“A little late for that I’m afraid,” Loki replies, matter-of-fact, as he sips discreetly at his tea. 

Steve does the same, and finds it to be a pleasantly sweet blend. He remembers Thor mentioning Loki likes sweet things. Just one of his quirks, things only a sibling would remember. It surprises Steve sometimes that Thor could have noticed such a small detail, and yet not have noticed when Loki felt tormented and isolated. 

A long moment of silence. 

“What were you reading?” Steve asks, resigned to the fact he’s going to sit through at least one entire cup of very hot tea. 

Loki picks up his novel and hands it to him. The leather of the cover is old and worn, but it’s clear it’s a treasured possession. Steve handles it with the care it deserves, aware that Loki owns very little and guards it jealously. 

“Runes?” Steve opens the book carefully and turns the thin, delicate pages. “I guess this is Old Norse, right? It looks a lot like the Cyrillic alphabet.” 

“It appears similar to the unpracticed eye, but the Cyrillic alphabet is in fact a child system of the Greek uncial alphabet,” Loki puts down his tea cup. “Many believe the Asgardians provided the Greek with such knowledge, but I prefer to believe mortals developed it on their own.”

Steve arches his brows. “Yeah. I mean, it’s the same thing with the pyramids. People don’t seem to want to believe humans con do these things on their own.”

“You certainly can,” Loki laces his long fingers. “You do have the occasional smart individual.”

“Wow, thanks,” Steve can’t help smiling. “That’s high praise.” 

“Cheeky,” Loki replies, unimpressed, and reaches out to retrieve the book. Steve smiles. 

“Well, it’s a bit jarring to see you like this. I don’t think I’ve seen you out of a suit before. Or that fancy armor of yours.” 

“You wear a flag on your stomach,” Loki arches a brow. “I do believe you have no right to judge my attire.” 

“Oh no, I’m not judging,” Steve assures. “It’s just a change, is all. You look very young like this. It surprised me.”

“I am thousands of years old,” Loki tilts his head. “Older even than this world, in many ways.” 

Steve doesn’t know how to reply to that. In one of those rare quiet and sad moments Thor sometimes indulges in, he’d told Steve that Loki is cursed with the memory of the cycle of the Ragnarok; he remembers every death and every rebirth. Thor doesn’t know what part Loki plays in it all, or why he should remember. But he believes sometimes that knowledge is what makes Loki bitter and sad, and angry, because Loki doesn’t know how to be sad without being angry for it. 

“You yourself are not dressed for battle,” comments the god of mischief, glancing at Steve’s battered old brown leather jacket, layered above a blue plaid button-up shirt of the sorts Tony loathes with startling intensity. 

“Well, I didn’t come to Paris to fight anyone,” Steve replies. He gives in and takes one of the cookies, breaking it in half and then fourths before taking a piece to his mouth. Loki watches him, neutral for the most part, though Steve can tell he’s possibly amused, as well. 

“Neither did I,” Loki tilts his head, looking at the remaining pieces of the cookie with feline curiosity. “A peculiar habit, if I may point out.”

“Oh,” Steve feels a little embarrassed. “We didn’t have a lot growing up, so I used to split everything in halves. I can’t shake the habit.” 

Loki hums thoughtfully. “Some things stay with us always.”

There is a pause as Steve takes another sip of his tea. He arches his brows when Loki reaches out and snags one of the pieces of his cookie, casual as you please, and eats it. Steve figures this is Loki being obnoxious, since he’s certainly not going to stop being obnoxious for Steve’s sake. It’s a good thing Tony has made Steve impervious to obnoxious, childish behavior. 

“Do you miss it, soldier?” Loki asks, voice quiet and eyes fixed on the window. “Your time, your home? The place where you belonged?”

Steve considers that for a moment.

“Yeah,” he settles on. “Not everything, I mean. But some things, yeah. America changed a lot while I slept.” 

“Seventy years is a long time for a mortal.”

Steve nods, turning the delicate little silver spoon in his big fingers. He lifts his head, searching Loki’s eyes. 

“You know what I miss the most? How simple thing were back then. If you had a problem with a fellow, you took it outside and you solved it. There are all these rules now.”

“I was under the impression you liked rules.”

“They’re good rules,” Steve nodded. “But they complicate everything. These days if I had done what I did back in the war, I’d be court-martialed.” 

“Would you not have been court-martialed back then as well? That is, if you had not plunged to your icy death.”

That’s just Loki trying to get a rise out of Steve, scratching at the tender parts to see what tears and bleeds. Steve ignores it with practiced ease. 

“There were extenuating circumstances,” he says firmly.

“You still believe that what you did was the right, the only thing to do,” Loki smiled, and this was a new, softer smile that Steve had never seen. Amused, yes, as always, but—appreciative, as well. “For a soldier, you are quite independent.” 

“Well, I’m a captain,” Steve makes that fast little gesture with his head that Tony finds so amusing to imitate, a quick tilt and back to straight. “I’m meant to be making decisions, too.”

“Ah. Yes, of course. Captain America.”

Steve hesitates. Then, he takes the plunge. 

“Do _you_ miss it? Home?”

Loki turns his head to look at him out of the corner of his eye, a gesture unsettling for the way it made his gaze even more intense. 

“To which home are you referring, Captain Rogers?”

Minefield. There are a thousand wrong answers to this question; there might also be a right one, somewhere, but Steve doesn’t have it. Steve doesn’t have a lot of answers on a regular basis, and mostly he’s okay with that, but when it comes to Loki, you never know what’s going to trigger him and make him blow up half a city. Steve regrets having asked. 

And then he defaults to the only, most obvious and clearly wrong answer, because Loki is looking at him and if he keeps quiet, the god will pounce on him. 

“Asgard, I guess,” he says, and winces.

But Loki simply laughs, low and slow and rich. 

“No. I do not miss Asgard.”

“Nothing about it?” Steve prods. 

Loki’s brows twitch. “The servants, perhaps. It’s tedious to have to have to fix my won baths.”

Steve tilts his head, pursing his lips and frowning. Loki smiles. 

“Very well. I lie. I miss the gardens, and the way the sun would reflect on the metal-and-marble halls of old.” He pauses, eyes flicking down. “I miss Frigga.” 

Steve flounders momentarily, until he remembers who that is. Oh. 

He smiles, “Yeah. I miss my mom too.”

Loki gives him a look full of condescension, immediately and jarringly retreating into himself. Steve flinches. 

“Frigga is not my mother,” he says in a bored, monotone voice. “Nor is Odin my father, or Thor my brother. Asgard is not my home.”

“It’s not just blood that makes family family,” Steve says, leaning forward on the table, because it kills him that Loki doesn’t understand that, much the same way Tony didn’t understand that, until they proved it to him. “It’s memories, affection, a life lived together. You and Thor grew up together, Loki. Maybe there isn’t blood between them, but there’s a bond even stronger than blood.”

“There is blood between us,” Loki replies. “All of that which I have spilled on the floor at his feet, his and mine and both combined. Plenty of it really.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

“I don’t know what you _do_ mean, Captain. Thor and I are not brothers. The only bond that exists between us is that forged through hate and rage and the need for revenge.” 

“Thor _loves_ you,” Steve stresses, clenching his jaw. “He calls you brother and he protects you. He wants you to come back to him, Loki.”

“I was _never_ his,” Loki hisses, straightening in the chair, eyes ablaze. Steve tenses. This is the tipping point; Loki might fold, or he might attack. This is the edge Loki always balances on, intermittent whimsical kindness notwithstanding. 

“Loki, you could stop this,” Steve spread his hands. “I know it doesn’t feel like that for you, but Odin and Frigga and Thor, they love you. You’ll always be their son, parents never let that go. You could go back.”

“To return to being the disappointing, unfavored and disliked child,” Loki says scathingly. “Ah yes, the pleasure of such existence feels me with warmth.” 

“Don’t be petty,” Steve snaps. Loki blinks. “You know it’s not like that. And okay, sure Thor wouldn’t know if there really was a marked favoritism, because he would have been the favorite, but he’s not an idiot, either. If Odin and Frigga didn’t love you, he would know.”

“Much like he knows when I use one of my illusions against him? Because he falls for those every time.”

“Much like he knows you like chocolate and sugar,” Steve counters, sitting back in his chair tapping a finger against the table as he enumerates. “like he knows you don’t like being alone and he knows your favorite time of day is dawn and your least favorite noon, because he knows you hate the heat, and he knows you like Paris because you feel it’s trapped in time, and hate New York because it never stays still.”

He stops, letting that sink in. Loki sits motionless, stunned. 

“He talks about you all the time, Loki. He misses you. You might be a champ at lying and deceiving, but you know Thor can’t pull that off. He has no option but to be genuine about what he feels. And yeah, maybe there’s a lot of bad blood right now between you, and years of pranks and cruelty and isolation and negligence, but Loki, you’re missing the forest for the trees.”

Loki looks at him, eyes frank and clear, a stunning shade of emerald green. This is not one of those times Steve forgets how lovely Loki is. 

“Impassioned speech, Captain Rogers, but you don’t understand. I can never return home.” 

“Yeah, you can,” Steve insists. “Because for all the sadness and bitterness, there’s also kindness and tenderness there. And if it’s just pride keeping you away, then you’re more a fool than the rest of us, no matter how intelligent you are.”

Loki looks away, long lashes shifting. Steve watches the curve of his eyelid over his eye, the long straight line of his nose, the sharp masculine angle of his jaw. His eyes travel down the pale column of Loki’s neck, dragging down the line of the sternocleidomastoid muscle, from skull to the hollow between his slender collarbones. 

Loki is an artist’s dream; he’s constructed of clear elegant lines, graceful at every turn and never anything but mysterious and unattainable. Steve wonders if it’s possible to draw him, or he’s one of those faces you can never capture. He rather thinks it’s the latter. That would be just like Loki. 

For a moment, he feels the urge to reach out and touch. Loki looks otherwordly even in his human clothes, like at any moment he might vanish never to return. 

Then Loki’s eyes snap back to him, sharp. 

“You can never go home,” he says. “Is that not what your holy book says?”

Steve is astonished. “You read the Bible?”

Loki waves a hand. “Of course. As well as the Torah and the Koran, and the teachings of Confucius and Buddha.”

Of course, Steve thinks. Loki loves knowledge, he loves _learning_. 

“But _isn’t_ that what your Bible says?”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees. “But you’re taking it out of context. What that passage means is one you leave your home and see different things, you change, and when you come back, your home is different, just as you are. You can never go home like that. Just like a river is never really the same, at two points in time, because the water flows.”

“How poetic.”

“But your home is _there_ , Loki,” Steve insists. “You’re different, sure, and Odin and Frigga will look different, and maybe even the way the sun falls on the metal-and-marble halls of old will be different,” he grins when Loki looks surprised he remembers. “Don’t talk to me about poetic, you sound like Shakespeare.”

“He was an interesting fellow,” Loki offers. 

“I’m sure he was. Are you done stalling, or would you like to go onto Marlowe?” 

Loki laughs out loud, and Steve is startled at the sound, and at the realization he’s never heard Loki genuinely laugh before. It’s a frank, open, beautiful thing. 

“O, thou art fairer than the evening air clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.” 

“Thanks, I’m flattered,” Steve says, insincerely, though he can’t stop smiling. 

“I cannot possibly begin to comprehend what else you might have to say,” Loki says genially. “You have already called me petty, cruel and a fool.”

Steve gives him a look, because he knows Loki didn’t just hear half the words that came out of Steve’s mouth; he’s just being mocking and childish, because he doesn’t want to listen to the rest. That’s never stopped Steve from talking, though. 

“Loki, you can go home,” he insists, quietly now. “They want you there. All of these problems you have, you can work them out.”

“Why do you persist on this?” Loki demands. 

“Because you can!” Steve sits back in his chair, tired. “Your home is there, just waiting for you to go back. Mine is seventy years past and a lifetime away. _I_ can never go back.”

He rubs at his eyes, sighing, bracing an elbow on the table. When he raises his head again, Loki is staring at him, quiet, eyes oddly soft. 

“ _My_ home is gone, Loki. You said it yourself. I’m a man out of time. Everyone I knew and loved is gone, and the world I understood is just, not here anymore, it’s not _this_ one.” He taps his finger on the table again, as if the table was America and the world in 2012, an alternate reality to Steve, a universe foreign and new. 

“I wake up and they told me we won the war,” he says quietly. “But no one says all the things we lost.”

“All wars always cause loss,” Loki murmurs. “There is no such thing as winning them.”

Steve is, again, surprised. “I thought you liked wars.”

“I enjoy them for a while,” Loki admits. “So long as they are amusing. But the war you speak of, the second great war of your world. It spiraled well out of control.” 

“Didn’t you think of intervening?” Steve asks curiously. 

Loki shrugs. “Back then, I fancied myself obedient to the rules Odin Allfather had set down for us. I was reluctant to intervene in the affairs of the mortals, for fear of punishment and consequence.”

“But you did think about it.”

“I dislike… what is the word you use? Bullies.”

Steve laughs incredulously. “But you’re a bully too, Loki.”

Loki arches his brows. “Am I? Do I trouble myself terrorizing the weak and helpless? Or do I, conversely, stalk my brother and you, powered creatures, old and new, and seek to overthrow you? Or is it that you consider yourself a weak and helpless thing, as well as displaced and lost?”

“No,” Steve sighs. “I guess not. That’s fair enough by your thinking, but a lot of people get caught in the crossfire. What about them?”

“The weak are always the price,” Loki’s eyes are suddenly distant, half-lidded. “I was that price, once. I was innocent, once.”

“And Odin saved you,” Steve leans forward, closing his hand in a fist to stop himself from grabbing onto Loki’s wrist for emphasis. 

“He did not have that right,” in contrast to his previously distant look, Loki’s eyes snap full of life and fire, wide. “It was not his prerogative.”

“But it was,” Steve gives in and wraps his fingers around Loki’s left wrist, feeling the jut of bone beneath the skin of his palm. Loki has big hands. “Because that’s what you do! When you’re strong, you have a duty to protect the weak, not _prey_ on them.”

Loki stares at him for a long time, blinking slowly. 

“How is that fair, Loki?” Steve pushes. “You were abandoned to die, Thor told me. Odin aved you and raised you like his son, and okay, yeah—“ he makes a gesture with his free hand when Loki opens his mouth. “maybe he doesn’t love you as much as he does Thor, or more likely, he doesn’t _express_ it as much as you need him to. But he _does_ love you.”

Loki twists his wrist, restless. Steve releases him and sits back, aware suddenly of the way Loki looks trapped and uncomfortable. Loki is very vulnerable, sometimes, when you get a glimpse of what’s beneath the layers of armor and leather and scars hardened to chain-mail. 

“I’m just,” Steve sighs. “Trust me when I say you’ll regret it if they die and you never give yourself and them a chance to mend this. My mom didn’t want me to go to war, so we argued, and I left, and then I never came back. It keeps me awake sometimes that I didn’t tell her I loved her. She deserved better from me.”

“Mortal regret,” Loki. “What a bleeding heart you have.”

Steve huffs a short, quiet laugh. “nothing is really eternal though, is it?” he asks quietly. “What about Ragnarok?”

Loki stills. 

“Everything ends, doesn’t it?” Steve murmurs. 

“Yes,” Loki’s eyes close. “Yes. It must. Al lives must end. All worlds must die. That is the way of things. Death is as much a part of life as birth.” 

Steve nods slowly. “Yeah. I get that. But you have a boon, because your life is longer. You get time to fix your mistakes. I don’t.”

“Eventually, such mistakes will cease to matter,” Loki’s voice is uncharacteristically kind, soft. “Your mother is dead. You are alive. Mourn her, weep for her—and _live_. Such is the mortal way. You bid the dead farewell.”

Steve took in a shuddering breath, swallowing. 

“The world is a loop, Steve Rogers,” Loki says. “It ends and begins, endlessly, ashes to ashes, always reborn. Perhaps in another turn, your life will play differently, and your mother and you will do right by each other. Perhaps James Barnes will not go to war and fall to the ice. Or, conversely, perhaps he will, and will fall with him.”

Loki spread his hands. “No one dies before their time. There is no such thing,” he raises his shoulders slightly, then drops them, as if the movement must accompany the strength of his words. “We all get the same. One life. One per each turn of the world. You are born, and then you die.”

He pauses, and waits as Steve struggles to regain his composure. 

“And your life is so short,” Loki rises from his chair, picking up his book. “Don’t waste it on regrets.”

“Will you,” Steve looks up at him, blinking. “will you think about what I said?”

Loki considers him for a moment. “I will. You’ve my word.” 

Steve manages a small smile. “How much is that worth?”

Loki laughs. “Not much at all. But you may seek comfort in the knowledge that you have made me think. And thinking is the one thing I do _very_ well.” 

“Just don’t overdo it,” Steve teases as Loki turns away towards the door. “And drop in on your brother, he’s been sulking!” 

Loki throws him a sharp smile over his shoulder, and leaves without another word. 

Stave stays a while longer, to finish his tea and the cookie Loki didn’t touch. They’re both really good. 

It’s somewhat less pleasant when the waitress informs him Loki didn’t pay before he left, but Steve figures he set himself up for that one.


End file.
